update...more pics and shat added up to today honkeys..... First off, let me just say….THANK YOU ALL! Your prayers, well wishes, and auctions are just overwhelming to us! We don’t feel we deserve any of this , with all the other heart break in the world. Its hard to express how much you all mean to us! You are all just wonderful! God bless you! Anyone who has sent well wishes or been involved with auctions, PLEASE FRIEND ME ON HERE! Im going to try and friend ya all as we get caught up on things, but if you havent gotten a request from me, please do so! You are all my extended hamb family to say the least! This thread will take me a while do to my lack of photo bucket skills, and or pc skills all together so bare with me! So, about a month ago, or so, we started getting hit with some pretty good rain, just like we have had for the last 4 damn years! Normally, like in 08, the secondary levees to our south east will blow out from the Mississippi and flood back up to our house…nothing big, just couple foot deep in our driveway! Well , 3 weeks ago or so, we had 12 inches of rain fall in the fox river, in 30 hours! It started way up in Iowa, and came right down the river the entire time! Not good! The river is about 300 yards or so behind our house. My uncle dale got to our place about 530 am and said we had better get shanas car up to our neighbors before the fox blocked off our road! {yrs ago, 2 grouchy ass farmers didn’t want to give up there land, so for about 500 yards, our road runs to the inside of the levee} nice huh? With the sugar creek levee already blown, we had no way to get out unless by four wheeler…so we ran her lil kia up to mikes {neighbor who lives up out of the flood plain} and the water was maybe six inches deep! Keep in mind that mikes house is less then a mile from ours! Within a 15 min span, the river was almost on my doors of my redneck big dodge, so I knew it was four wheeler only at the point! Happens all the time, annoying but no big deal! Well, about 3 hours later I go to see how much it had came up and there were farmers on utvs filling sandbags! Wth????? I asked jim what he was doing and he said there was a low spot and my neighbor Dennis house and the wanted to put some bags on it so it wouldn’t run over the levee! I was like, the hell you talking about? So I drove up on top of the levee and within that 3 hr time frame, it went from almost to the bottom of my doors, to 10-12 ft deep! Ohh shit! I still wasn’t worried about it breaking at my house cause they fixed the levee up in 09 after it almost went over at my house in 08. I figured it would break on east of all our houses! Which there is only 3 of!!!!LOL So any who, to make a short story way to damn long apparently, from 11 am to 7 pm that eve, we had baggers all over the place trying to stop the fox river…..it wasn’t working! I took Shana {breeders wife} down to the house on the levee and stuffed the quad with sandbags….we get behind our house and seen it was running over for well over a hundred yards! I told her its over, threw the sand bags off and we headed to the house to grab whatever we could fit on the quad! About that same time my neighbor to the west [dennis] called and said that the sugar creek road was now low enough to get out that way! I called my uncle dale and told him to meet me at the house in his truck! Se had an hour [didn’t know that at the time} to get out what we could! So he jump started the motor home, I grabbed my guns, and well, that’s it! J she grabbed silly shit like bills, clothes, pics of the kids…J we made the trip around to mikes {the out of the flood zone neighbor} and dropped off the motor home! It took about 30 mins from the time we left home till my bud corey and I got back to the house on my grizzly…..in that time, the whole field behind my house was under water from the run over, and was hitting the tube in my driveway and shooting up in the air about 5 foot! Corey freaked and said “dude, lets get the hell outta here”!!!! I started laughing at him…then I turned the grizzly around seen the high spot in our road go under in about 30 secs, and then I said “ohh shit corey, lets get the hell outta here” lol By this time there was atleast a 1000 yards of levee being topped, and the entrances to our cross over levee were really running! It was just a matter of time! Before the wife and I left the house she prayed the house would be safe! It was…but she really wished she would have prayed for the whole farm in retrospect! Lol… The next morning it looked like Niagara falls on the levee at mikes house, and had broke right to the west of dennis’s house….you could really see it rippin through the levee there, so I was feeling pretty good about things! Then my east neighbor henry called! “ well, good news is, I can still see grass up by your house, bad news is, the levee blew right behind your house and it’s a big one!” ohh lord! There was no place to get to , to see what was going on, which was madness! Henry built levees around his place after the 08 flood so he was in pretty good shape and kept me informed about it a lot! I think it was 5 days before I could get close enough to see anything! Wow, it was crazy! Henry has some good pics of those days, and some videos as well! He was telling me he had never in his life seen current so strong at a break before! He was telling me 2 ft by 60 trees were blowing through the brake like surf boards! Shut up already! Lol…I couldn’t see anything dammit! Please take this time to refill your popcorn and use our restrooms before the story continues….ugh! So, it has flooded 3 times since the break, each as deep as the first! Roads torn to bits, so cant get to the house with anything but a quad….federal declared it a disaster, but the states dragging there damn feet, so nothing will be done till then! We have moved 3 times and are now at my grandfathers house in Alexandria. He passed away in oct of last yr, and my mom has it up for sale…were living in our motor home, and using gramps place for showers, laundry and storage! Id imagine we will be here for a long spell…but its good…were safe, dry, and now I have my internet back! Whoo hoo! If I were smarter , id have put all the pics in with the story but im lazy and a lil slow, so ill just post them after and tell ya what they are! J Thanks again for all your support gang! May God bless ya with goodness! Much love, Todd breeder reed Shana breeders wife reed Gabriel reed Abby reed And that damn dog shana brought home Elliot
Jeez Bro,, I kinda feel like you should be adding new books and chapters to the bible. Glad you and yours found somewhere dry to crash! Shit can be replaced, but your one of a kind and so is the rest of your clan,, including that little doggie.
its a pretty lil river when its not in my yard!!!!LOL our silly put the gravel road on the inside of the levee for 500 yrds sillyness...that was early that morning..... couple hrs later where my truck was parked when i took the first pic after the river went down the first crossing of that same sillyness headin to our house, a couple hours later. the begining of our road and running over where i took the above pic! doesnt look that long in this pic. but it is!!!! it almost broke there!
break at dennis house...our house is in the background...thats as far as id been able to get at that point ....been 5 days if i recall! they got very damn lucky!
pool for sale! come with its own beach! its under a lil bit of sand behind the swing, but the price is cheap! ladder included!
Thank the Lord that you and your family are safe and have a place to call home for now. God bless you and take care.
I still can't imagine what you guys must be going through,,It will get better,eventually! BTW,ever give any thought to adding Missouri Mud Pie to the desert menu at Reed's Bar & Grill? I think it would be a appropriate addition. HRP
flood one! when the levee broke...5 days later... first trip home. doesnt look like much of a walk, but brother, IT WAS! course im fat and smoke, so that prolly didnt help! you would have thought the first flood was bad.....wait till ya see my poor girl after flood 3! ugh! im sooo glad i moved the lil gasser to here! it would have been toast! lucky!
flood one still.... found all but one of the show banners! rp {kropduster on here} saving my lays! thanks brother! jeff norwell signed RR poster that was in my standup tool box..after flood 2... if it will peel of there, imma frame it mud and all and do an auction on here for someone.. abbys bike survived! she was so happy, she rode it twice! rollseyes!!!! lol
As I got to the last picture I became aware my jaw was on the floor! Man that sucks, just glad you and yours are safe. Hope you get things sorted out. Good luck.
Man Todd, you guys are lucky to be alive. Hang in there and keep your head up, thats all you can do from here forward.
Glad you and your family are safe. What a f'n mess. At my age I'd never recover from that. Hope all works out well. Ron
wow... Those pictures show how powerful water really is.... I know you have alot going on but I still have the tailights for you falcon.... so when you need them or want them let me know where to send them........ Its not like you move to much are anything.... HaHa
wow, that is just sickining. sorry to see it. glad you guys are o.k. i just cant believe the power of that river. george
Damn!!! Glad to hear you and the family are ok. Thoughts and prayers are still on going. Keep the faith and it'll all clean up with a little soap and water.
ugh! when it rains it poors! mark{my phone guy} just left! box outside went to crap on me! soo.....im back again! arrg! ill be posting flood 2 and 3 inna min....just gotta rap up some stuff i was working on.....brb!
okay, round 2 of flooding! the break! this is the first time the wife got to see it! she also said, " IM NEVER MOVING BACK THERE"!! i told her id miss her! but when we finally got her to the house all she could say, is " i just wanna go home"! i told her she would say that! second time ive been right in 16 yrs!!!! yup, cant keep the girls off me! small pot hole blockin my driveway! my neighbor henry tryin to make a path around said pothole so i could get to the house! DIDNT WORK! CURRENT must have been pretty strong on round 2 as well! got my crazy wheels all , well, crazy!
more of flood 2! i bet RP {kropduster on here} wishes he would have picked a better place to store his chevys! mulching blades? whatever! they didnt do squat! note to self, dont store art in bottom of large tool box! work van for sale! cheap! comes with fish air freshner abbys just loves her pool ladder~!! LOL i planted those trees 20 yrs ago this yr! log jam behind them has got them leaning! dammit! as close as we can get from the east! k, on to round 3..........
flood 3! and GOD willing the last! fyi, just to letcha know, this is where the motor home was sitting 2 days before the flood! the wagoneer with 27k og miles was further out in the yard, and the falcon was 30 ft further out in the yard yet! thank GOD I borrowed rays (the black guy on here} lawn mower a couple days before and he helped me move them up to the house! thanks bro! i thought 08 was bad! i was wrong!!!!LOL lovely sunset me and my life partn...err, i mean ray, took during round 3 of flooding! brake looks kinna small! ITS NOT! Takin from down in the brake. round 3 blew the road out on the other side of the damn driveway! the black guy showin off his legs! no water on his no no spot! round in from the east. our last good field decided to get screwed in round 3! more sand in round 3 then the others! weeeeee!
I'd get your neighbor to push all that extra dirt into a big pile with the Cat. Then park the house-on-wheels on top of it. Good luck. It can't get much worse. Can it?
round 3 did wash a lil of the sand from rps chevy! breeders wife [shana] and my lil abby out in the yard...break in background. work van did well in rounds 1 and 2.....not so much in round 3! only been 3 weeks and the roof on the inside is rusting! wild! i said earlier that round 3 was rough on my girl 59! i wasnt kidding..... that motor can really haul the wood as they say!~ was a nice lil field behind these before! now its gonna be a monster water melon patch! along with the other 125 acres!~ gotta good place in the drive to change my oil now! who needs a jack? i dont!!!LOL
The Jalopy Journal
